


home remedies for burnout

by xenosaurus



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Implied/Referenced Sex, Nothing explicit, Nurses & Nursing, hawke just makes some flirty jokes about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:27:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21706726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xenosaurus/pseuds/xenosaurus
Summary: Logically, Andersmusthave slept sometime between nursing school and this bus ride, even if his pounding headache insists otherwise.
Relationships: Anders/Female Hawke
Comments: 2
Kudos: 59





	home remedies for burnout

**Author's Note:**

> this is a random present for [kali](https://kalidels.tumblr.com) over on tumblr, her dragon age art is INSPIRING and she was really into the idea of modern au anders as an exhausted nurse so I wanted to write her a little something!
> 
> thank you to benny for betaing and for titling this fic! the full title is "home remedies for burnout: who needs essential oils when you have hawke"

Most people are unable to stay awake for more than a couple days, and the record for the longest time spent without sleep is 11 days.

So, logically, Anders _must_ have slept sometime between nursing school and this bus ride, even if his pounding headache insists otherwise. He’s coming off his third double shift in as many days-- he was supposed to only have one today, but another nurse called off and there was nobody else to relieve him. He’d ended up staying until almost midnight, and all he’s eaten today is vending machine pretzels.

It would have been a bad enough day if it hadn’t also required he cancel his plans with Hawke. She’d bought some kind of velvety blanket when she went shopping with her sister yesterday, and texted him a picture of it with the caption ‘`looking forwards to ruining this with you tomorrow ;)`’.

He’d never consider abandoning his patients, but it is uniquely painful to spend his evening coaxing an elderly diabetic woman into letting him give her insulin when he could be in bed with his girlfriend.

The bus stop is a five minute walk from his apartment, which he immediately resents once he steps off the bus. Cold wind slaps him in the face and he pulls his scarf up over his nose. It isn’t going to be much warmer in his apartment, but he tries not to think about that on the walk back.

Hungry, exhausted, and freezing is a great combination for shaky hands, so Anders fumbles with his keys for a bit before getting the door open.

He expects a cold, dark apartment, but that’s not what greets him.

Both the lights and the heat are on, and he barely has time to process that before the smell of Chinese food reaches him with a polite reminder that he is _starving_. It’s such an unexpectedly warm, welcoming environment that for a moment he just looks around, baffled.

Then Hawke pokes her head out of the kitchenette and everything makes sense again. Of course.

“Anders!” she says, grinning like he’d showed up with chocolate and roses rather than a bus pass and not much else.

Anders drops his bag and pulls her into a tight hug, so happy to see her that he’s reluctant to speak for fear of what his voice would sound like. Hawke laughs and squishes her nose against his shoulder.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, the guilt already settling in. They’d been planning to meet at her place, so she must have come over here after he called her to cancel. How long has she been sitting in his mess of an apartment waiting for him to get back?

Hawke doesn’t seem to notice, reaching up to pull him into a kiss. She slips one hand under his scarf and he shivers at how warm her palm is against the back of his neck.

“Sexual triage,” she says, mock serious. “Tell me where it hurts, baby.”

Against his will, that makes Anders smile. “That isn’t how triage works.”

“It’s how _sexy_ triage works,” Hawke insists. “But in all seriousness, you sounded exhausted on the phone earlier. I thought some chow mein and a blowjob would do you some good.”

The guilt bubbles uncomfortably in Anders’ chest. That sounds beyond wonderful, but all he’s done to deserve it is cancel on her.

“When I gave you a spare key, I wasn’t expecting you to come over and take care of me. You don’t have to do that,” Anders says. Hawke scoffs and kisses him on the cheek as she finally steps out of the hug.

“Well, _you_ didn’t have to hold my hair back when I barfed after Isabela’s birthday party, but you still did! And this is way more fun than that was. Now, enough self-pity, come eat dinner before the sauce congeals.”

She starts prying open the takeout containers strewn across the table. She doesn’t even get into the first one before she goes too hard and her thumb punches through the thin styrofoam. It’s ridiculous and mundane, and Anders is overwhelmed by how much he loves this woman.

“Hawke?”

“Hmm?” She looks up at him, halfway through putting her thumb in her mouth to lick the sauce off.

“Thank you.”

She grins at him and, no longer paying attention, breaks another styrofoam lid.

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is [xenosaurus](https://xenosaurus.tumblr.com)


End file.
